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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24510925">Chinese</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth'>DameRuth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bliss [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Friendship, Gen, Mickey deserved to be treated better than he was in canon, Working things out</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:09:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24510925</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose and Mickey have been best mates forever -- can they salvage their friendship after Rose gets engaged?  A Bliss!verse story, though I like to think the two of them would have had a similar conversation in *any* universe.</p><p>[Continuing the Teaspoon imports, original posting date 2007.06.23.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bliss [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/14078</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Chinese</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've always liked Mickey, so here's my attempt to do justice to him and his friendship with Rose.  References the previous stories "The Shared Path," "Different," and "Official."</p><hr/>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mickey pretended to be interested in surfing the Internet, but he was the only person around, so the act didn't fool anyone.<br/>
<br/>
A knock at the door of his flat -- five knocks, actually, in a very particular rhythm: <i>tap-tap . . . a-tap-tap</i>.  No need to guess who it was, even if Jackie hadn't called him half an hour ago to tell him Rose was back for a visit.<br/>
<br/>
"S' nice," he'd told her, "say 'hi' for me," and hung up.  The phone hadn't rung again, after that.<br/>
<br/>
He’d been expecting that knock for a while, now, and he still hadn't decided how to respond to it.  In the absence of other ideas, habit took over, so he swung his chair around and went to answer the door.<br/>
<br/>
It was Rose, of course.  She was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, a pink hoodie, and trainers.  Her hair was shorter, but she was still wearing too much eyeliner -- he'd always tried to tell her she looked fine without, but you never could tell Rose anything she didn't want to hear.<br/>
<br/>
She smiled at him, and it was a pretty good smile -- if he hadn't known her so well, he'd never have caught that she was nervous.  It was the same smile she'd use to brazen her way out of trouble, years ago, when the two of them had been caught doing something dumb, dangerous, destructive, or some combination of the three.  That smile'd gotten the two of them out of a lot of tight places -- the only people who'd never been fooled by it were her mum and his gran.<br/>
<br/>
And now she was using it on him.<br/>
<br/>
He should have felt angry, he thought, but instead, he mostly felt tired.<br/>
<br/>
Rose was carrying a couple of bags.  She hefted them for his inspection.  "I come bearing Chinese," she said, "Can I come in?"<br/>
<br/>
He nodded and stepped back from the doorway so she could get past him.  He looked out the door, but there was nobody with her.<br/>
<br/>
"Where're Tweedledumb an’ Tweedledee?" he asked, not bothering with a greeting.  For other people that would be rude, but between the two of them, it was normal to just start right in.<br/>
<br/>
"With Mum," she called from the kitchen, where she already had the bags on the counter, unpacking an array of small white boxes.  "Based on what she said over the phone, she's either talkin' to them about wedding plans, or else gettin' 'em to work on the drains."<br/>
<br/>
Mickey couldn't help laughing and shaking his head a little at those images.  "So there's justice in the world after all," he commented, joining Rose in the kitchen and rounding up some clean plates, along with a fork for him.  Rose would use the disposable chopsticks that came with the food -- she always did.<br/>
<br/>
Dividing up the food was a familiar task.  Chinese take-out had long been their way of celebrating, settling a bet . . . or making up after a fight.<br/>
<br/>
Rose’d made the first move, bringing a peace offering.  Where things went from here depended on Mickey.<br/>
<br/>
Whatever happened, it wasn’t going to be a case of going back to normal — or what had been normal before a certain Doctor turned their lives upside, down and given them a good shake in the process.  Or even to what had been the new “normal” for a few months after that . . . things had changed for good, this time.<br/>
<br/>
Mickey didn’t miss the ring on Rose’s left hand (hard to, with the way the stone caught the light so dazzlingly — not a diamond, Mickey was willing to bet, nothing that ordinary for Rose).  Not to mention everything Jackie’d told him, and the conversation he’d had with Rose — short and angry — at the door of her mum’s flat, after he’d used a big yellow truck to send her back to the man she loved.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor.<br/>
<br/>
Rose had brought beer, too, and he took a swig from his while he watched Rose neatly divvying up the rice between two plates, her engagement ring twinkling with every movement of her hands.<br/>
<br/>
“Looks like he’s doin’ right by you, anyway,” he said, grudgingly.<br/>
<br/>
“What?” Rose asked, caught off-guard.<br/>
<br/>
“The ring.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, yeah . . . Jack’s got one, too.  Different design, though.”  She dropped the words casually, naturally, but she was testing him for a reaction.<br/>
<br/>
“Bet that’s got ol’ Flashheart bein’ an even smugger bastard than usual,” Mickey told her, wryly.<br/>
<br/>
It wasn’t the reaction she’d expected, he could tell, and it surprised a hoot of genuine laughter from her.  “Mickey!” she said, but she was too amused for it to be much of a rebuke.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he asked, grinning and taking another swig of beer.<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah, y’ are,” she admitted, “though there’re nicer ways to put it.”  She added Sesame Beef and deep-fried prawns to a plate, and passed it over.<br/>
<br/>
<i>She sprang for the good stuff,</i> Mickey couldn’t help noticing — all of their more expensive favorites were represented.<br/>
<br/>
They settled at the kitchen table, automatically pushing newspapers, magazines, old teacups, and computer parts out of the way to make room for their plates.  Any other girl, and Mickey would’ve been dying of embarrassment, but not with Rose.  She was used to his housekeeping, or lack thereof.<br/>
<br/>
Rose started in on her food, genuinely hungry, and Mickey, who hadn’t eaten anything that afternoon, realized he was hungry, too.  He dug in — no sense not to.  And it bought him some time to think.<br/>
<br/>
He watched Rose eating, managing the chopsticks gracefully.  She’d worked hard at that, practicing all the time.  Got so she would eat popcorn with chopsticks, while they sat and watched the telly.  She’d said she wanted to be in practice, since she swore one day she’d go to China and eat with chopsticks <i>properly</i>.<br/>
<br/>
That was Rose — all the while she was growing up, she couldn’t wait to plan where she’d go someday, what things she’d see.  When she was about ten, she’d gotten a little spiral-bound notebook with pink holographic glitter covers.  Other girls filled notebooks like that with snippets about the boys they wanted to marry, the bands they listened to, and  social events they’d been to . . . but not Rose.  Her little notebook was full of destinations, itineraries, and things she thought she needed to learn before she got where she was going.<br/>
<br/>
Eating with chopsticks was one of those things.<br/>
<br/>
She’d still kept the pink notebook right into adulthood, most of the glitter worn away and its corners rounded off after years of handling.  Mickey knew, because he’d found it in her dresser drawer when he’d gone to pick up her passport before meeting her in Cardiff.  Didn’t seem like she needed that old notebook anymore, though.  Now she was traveling constantly, and to places she’d never have dreamed to write down, before.<br/>
<br/>
He wondered if she’d gotten to China yet.<br/>
<br/>
By the time Rose was eighteen, she was raring to go, ready to get out there and have adventures.  Too bad for her that her first adventure had been Jimmy.<br/>
<br/>
Mickey’d had him pegged for a rotter from day one, as had Jackie, and Shireen, and pretty much everyone Rose knew — but Rose thought he was older and sophisticated and interesting, and maybe even a little bit dangerous in an exciting way, so she ignored everyone . . . and essentially vanished for a while.<br/>
<br/>
When she came back, she’d stopped talking about traveling.  Or about much of anything, really.<br/>
<br/>
For a few black days, Mickey had seriously considered having a go at Jimmy — but he was, at heart, a realist, and knew it’d be Jimmy wiping the floor with him and not the other way around.  Mickey’d never been much of a fighter.  So, instead, he’d concentrated on being there for Rose, and comforting her as much as possible.<br/>
<br/>
One night, it had turned into him holding her while she cried . . . and then she’d kissed him, or he’d kissed her, and it had all changed while somehow staying exactly the same.  They were still the same old friends, and it was easy and comfortable . . . maybe too much so, Mickey understood now.  Neither of them ever thought about it, really, and look where they’d ended up.<br/>
<br/>
He might have guessed it would go this way — well not <i>this</i> way, what with a bad-tempered alien, a smirky bloke from the future, and time travel and all — but with Rose leaving.<br/>
<br/>
Towards the end of their normal life together, she’d started talking again — the old subjects, of travel and adventure, and wonders seen in the flesh rather than on a television screen.  He still remembered lying in bed, Rose warm and close beside him, talking softly, just a voice in the darkness, painting her dreams in words.  By then, Mickey knew the chances of Rose Tyler, shop girl, doing any of those things or going any of those places was about as likely as her going to the Moon — it was just the way the world worked, after all.  He’d made encouraging little noises at all the right points, insincerely, just glad to have her talking again.  Time enough for her to wake up to reality, once she was healed up.<br/>
<br/>
And then Reality in a leather coat walked up and tapped Rose on the shoulder, and the joke was on Mickey.<br/>
<br/>
She was watching him now, while she nibbled on her last prawn (held daintily between the tips of her chopsticks), studying him back.  She reached for her beer, and the ring on her left hand caught the light of the kitchen lamp and shattered it into dazzling sparks like a tiny star.  Fitting.  After all, stars were what the Doctor could give her.  A flat full of secondhand furniture didn’t really compare, did it?<br/>
<br/>
Mickey set down his fork, picked up his beer bottle, and leaned back in his chair, keeping his eyes on Rose.<br/>
<br/>
“So,” he said, and drank.<br/>
<br/>
Rose took a deep breath and put down her chopsticks.  “So,” she said, and stopped.  Then: “Here we are.”<br/>
<br/>
“And where’s ‘here’?” he asked, voice neutral.<br/>
<br/>
“S’ what we need to decide, I guess.”  Rose shrugged.  “I’m engaged, but you’re my best mate — never mind Shireen, it’s you, always has been — and it’s all been a mess between us, which is mostly my fault, but I really, really don’t want to lose . . . you.  Us.  Smith’n’Tyler — against the world.”  She smiled painfully at their old catchphrase.  “Think we can make a go of it?”<br/>
<br/>
Mickey blinked.  That was pretty straight shooting, even for Rose.  Her intense brown eyes were fixed on him, and he couldn’t help remembering the first time he’d ever had those eyes looking at him.<br/>
<br/>
He was six, newly gone to live with Gran, and she took him to the local playground to introduce him around.  Mickey had been shy, but Rose had caught his eye immediately — a skinny little blonde girl (blonde for real, before her hair had darkened up and she’d taken to peroxide) who seemed to be everywhere at once.<br/>
<br/>
She’d seen him, too, and approached immediately with the classic childhood opener of, “Hi.  My name’s Rose.  What’s yours?”<br/>
<br/>
“Mickey.”<br/>
<br/>
“Wanna climb?”<br/>
<br/>
Rose would climb anything for fun, it turned out — and then jump off of it on a dare.  She was braver than anyone else their age, and Mickey was hugely impressed.  Determined to earn her respect, he’d followed everything she did.  He’d gotten her respect, all right.  Unfortunately, he’d also gotten a badly sprained ankle when he landed wrong.<br/>
<br/>
Gran and Jackie had descended on the two of them, once it became clear there was a real injury to worry about — and Rose had stood by Mickey with matter-of-fact staunchness, told the adults freely that it was her fault, and refused to be terrorized.<br/>
<br/>
For Mickey, anyway, it had been love from that moment on, though it took till after Jimmy for him to put a name to it.<br/>
<br/>
And she loved him --  he couldn’t doubt it, with that anxious look she was giving him.  Just not the way he wanted her to.  But she wasn’t like an ex-girlfriend, or not any ex he’d ever had, anyway.  She was . . . Rose.  So much a part of his life, for so long.  It wouldn’t feel right without her.  Didn’t feel right without her.<br/>
<br/>
His silence was making her nervous, so she rubbed her hands together and started up again.  “I dunno what to say, here.  I’m sorry, ‘cos I know I hurt you even though I didn’t mean to.  I thought I could go out there, travel, come back to you . . . but that was stupid.  Not fair to you.”<br/>
<br/>
She’d tried, though, he realized.  He remembered her in Cardiff, talking nonstop about everywhere she’d been, everything she’d seen.  At the time, he’d taken it as more cause to be hurt —  Rose rubbing his nose in everything she’d done without him.  With two other blokes, both of whom watched her like . . . two other blokes shouldn’t.  But now, looking back, he knew she’d only been doing what she’d always done — talking about travel and adventure.  Only this time, she’d had actual stories to tell, and she’d been bursting with them, all beside herself to share . . .<br/>
<br/>
. . . With him.  She’d wanted to share her joy in what she’d been doing, wanted him to <i>not</i> feel left out, since he couldn’t travel with her.  As far as she knew, that was.<br/>
<br/>
“Y’ know,” he said out of nowhere.  “He asked me along, once.”<br/>
<br/>
“What?”<br/>
<br/>
“The Doctor.  After we blew up Downing Street.  He asked me to travel with him, with you.  I turned him down.  I knew I couldn’t do it.  Told him not to let you know I’d chickened out.”<br/>
<br/>
Rose looked stunned, processing that.  “He never told me,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, s’ one thing he did right, then.” Mickey told her.  He took another swig of his beer, then leaned forward and set the bottle on the table.  He looked at it, turning it in a circle around its axis.<br/>
<br/>
“He — they — can give you everything you ever wanted,” he said, still looking at the bottle.  “Everything I can’t.”<br/>
<br/>
“Mickey . . .”<br/>
<br/>
“S’ true.”<br/>
<br/>
Silence.  Then: “Yeah.  I guess it is.”<br/>
<br/>
He spun his beer bottle couple more times, and then snorted.  “Well, if I had to be beaten, ‘least it was by <i>two</i> other blokes and a time machine.  If it’d been just one bloke with a Mini, I’d have to get depressed.”  He spoke with real humor, and finally looked back up at Rose, smiling.<br/>
<br/>
Rose, her expression lightening with hope, smiled back.<br/>
<br/>
He took a breath, and his chest felt lighter than it had in a long time.  “Truce,” he said, the old words, “Chinese pays for all.”<br/>
<br/>
She grinned then, that bright, open expression that could melt a heart of stone — and did an even bigger number on hearts of mere muscle.  She might not be <i>his</i> Rose anymore . . . but she was still his Rose.<br/>
<br/>
She reached across the table, and they shook hands on it.  Then she stood.<br/>
<br/>
“I think I want more of that Sesame Beef,” she told him, and held out her hand questioningly.<br/>
<br/>
Mickey, understanding perfectly, passed her his plate, and she went to refill them both.  She brought back both plates — then snagged another pair of beers before she sat back down again.<br/>
<br/>
Mickey raised his eyebrows at her.  “Don’t you have to be getting back?” he asked.<br/>
<br/>
“Not just yet,” she replied, comfortably, picking up her chopsticks again.<br/>
<br/>
“What about your two intendeds?”<br/>
<br/>
“They can get their <i>own</i> Chinese,” she said, mock-primly.  “This’s ours.”<br/>
<br/>
Mickey grinned at her.  She broke down and grinned back.  They clicked their bottles together in a toast, and then settled down to seconds.<br/>
</p>
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</p><p><span class="u">Disclaimer:</span>  All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners.  The original characters and plot are the property of the author.  No money is being made from this work.  No copyright infringement is intended.<br/>
<br/>
This story archived at <a href="http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=13401">http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=13401</a></p><p>
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